Courtesy parking has to be one of the greatest benefits of being an Airstreamer. I’ve always said that an Airstream is like a passport—because just being in an Airstream opens so many doors. Many times I’ve had people ask if I could bring the Airstream to their driveway (“because they’re so cool”) and it has always been a good experience.

What’s not to like about courtesy parking? You get a free place to stay during your travels, a host who usually wants to show you around or point out great places to visit, often an interesting location (perhaps downtown, out in the quiet country, or near a tourist area), and sometimes you even get invited to dinner.

But the best park is that by courtesy parking you’ll often meet great people who become friends. It’s a prime social opportunity for people who love to socialize.

But courtesy parking does come with some risks, and a wise Airstreamer will know how to assess an invitation before showing up. Here are my top tips for “pro” courtesy parkers:

Tip #1: Check out the location carefully. People who don’t own RVs will often underestimate the difficulty you might encounter getting to their home, or backing into their driveway. Don’t rely on their promises or guess, because they may not fully understand the challenges of towing a trailer or driving a tall motorhome. Do your own research, before you commit.

I like to start by checking Google Maps to see what roads I’m going to have to take to get there. In particular I’m looking for difficult turns and possibly congested traffic areas. This helps me decide what time of day I want to arrive. Then I look closely at the satellite imagery to see if any of the neighborhood corners might be complicated by tight turning radii or parked cars on the street.

Finally, I always ask if there’s a Home Owners Association rule or local ordinance that might prohibit RVs parking in driveways or in front of the house. Sometimes people who don’t own RVs forget about such rules until you mention it.

Tip #2: Keep an eye out for overhanging trees. As you approach, remember that your Airstream trailer is nearly 10 feet tall, and your motorhome may be as much as 12 feet tall. The tree branches that don’t bother your hosts can do serious damage to your Airstream. The same goes for carports, gates, and trellises. Approach slowly, and if there’s any doubt, have your co-pilot or host stand by and watch carefully as you creep the rig forward.

This is a problem more often than you might think. Many times I’ve had to stop and ask my hosts to go fetch their tree trimmers and ladder. Nobody has ever refused to allow trimming of a few branches, although often I end up on a ladder sweating, doing it myself. (After a couple of years of active courtesy parking, I began to consider traveling with my own branch cutters.)

Tip #3: Expect obstacles, and tricky turns. People often forget that their car or truck will go places that are simply impossible for a towed vehicle. Even fellow RV’ers have invited me to places that were impossible. Neighborhoods and driveways aren’t the same as campgrounds. There’s no guarantee you can make all the turns.

I remember a case where a friend with a 22-foot travel trailer invited us to back into his driveway, which was located on a wide street in a downtown neighborhood. When I arrived at 5 p.m. on a weekday, the street was narrowed to about 1.5 lanes by parked cars on both sides of the street, and commuters were using the neighborhood as a short-cut so there was constant traffic. To make it worse, I was towing a 30-foot trailer which had a considerably larger turning radius than his trailer.

The result was a debacle: to back into the driveway we had to block the entire street, and there was still not enough turning space to get into the driveway without mowing down some flowers and toppling the mailbox. “But I never have any trouble backing in!” said my friend, who typically came home from camping on quiet Sundays. After 20 minutes of frustration, I bailed out and went to Plan B, which brings us to my next tip …

Tip #4: Have a backup plan. If things don’t go well, don’t force it. That’s how you acquire dents and scrapes on your trailer. Research campgrounds or other alternate parking situations in the area so you don’t feel obligated to get into a space you really shouldn’t.

One time while checking the satellite view I spotted a stone wall on a tight turn, which my potential hosts had neglected to mention. It was hard to get them to understand that a 30-foot trailer and tow vehicle amount to about 54 feet of length that doesn’t readily go around 110-degree bends, and that stone walls tend to destroy soft aluminum. I felt pressured to “try” to get in even though from experience I knew it would be a mistake, and I might even get stuck. Having a Plan B helps a lot, psychologically.

Tip #5: Try to arrive when your host is home. Several times I’ve been invited to show up while the homeowners are away, and it’s always a bit worrying if I haven’t been there before. There’s always something to ask about when you arrive, like:

how close to that gate/fence/door can I park?

is it OK to move that sculpture, or trim that tree?

can I run my hose around to the back yard to connect to water?

why doesn’t the power outlet have any juice? (usually, it’s because the GFI has tripped)

why is your neighbor staring at me?

Tip #6: Be ready to level up. Sometimes driveways have steep slopes, and the only to make it work is with a lot of leveling blocks. Check out the picture above. The hitch jack was fully extended and we still had to stack up 10″ of wood blocks.

This happens often in suburban situations, and sometimes there’s nothing to do about it except park elsewhere. If you can get enough blocks to get approximately level, be ready for a wobbly night because even with the stabilizers down the Airstream is likely to feel less stable than usual.

Tip #7: Don’t expect anything from your host other than a little free parking. Courtesy parking is a favor granted to you by your host. They might offer power or water, use of the pool, advice on places to go, or even dinner in the house, but they’re not obligated to do anything. Try to be a good guest by expecting nothing, staying out of the house and yard unless specifically invited, not overstaying your welcome, and showing appropriate gratitude. (Bringing a small gift is always a nice touch, or a thank-you card.)

You’d think this piece of advice is obvious, but lots of people “accidentally” overstay their welcome. If you are suffering a mechanical breakdown that requires a few days to get repaired, or your fridge is empty, remember that’s not your host’s problem. They didn’t adopt you, and they have their own lives to live.

I have been the victim of courtesy-parking guests who were supposed to stay a few days but then decided they were comfortable and didn’t want to pay for a campground nearby. Next thing I knew, the offer of dinner and a free parking spot turned into semi-permanent houseguests who expected daily breakfast and dinner in the house. Needless to say, they were encouraged to move on, and haven’t been invited back since. Don’t force your host to tell you it’s time to go–leave while they’ll still miss you.

Tip #8: Hone your boondocking skills. Like I said, you might not get water or electricity in your overnight courtesy parking spot. (It’s a good idea to travel with 50 or 100-feet of extension cord so you can try to reach a power outlet in the garage, and at least keep the batteries charged.) Show up with full water and batteries so you can live independently if you need to, and be prepared to conserve water and power.

Having said that, it’s a rare courtesy parking spot that has absolutely no prospect for at least a water refill (again, bringing 50-feet of hose is a great idea—don’t rely on your host’s garden hose because it’s not suitable for drinking water). Check with your host beforehand and see what options you have. If they have an RV hookup on site, be sure to thank them profusely, and offer to chip in for electricity if you’re running your air conditioning. After all, they’re saving you $30-50 per night, and probably giving you a chance to experience the local area through their eyes, which is invaluable.

Airstreams don’t like being lonely. They’re gregarious and fun-loving.

That’s why you need to store them in the right place between trips. Left alone, all kinds of bad things can happen. A small leak from rain or melting snow can seep in and do a lot of damage. Squirrels and mice can find their way in, and wreak havoc on the insulation (and anything else chewable by rodent teeth). Spiders can clog up the water heater burner. Thieves and vandals can break in.

So what’s the best choice for storing your Airstream?

#1: At home, in a carport or pole barn

No question, the best place to have your Airstream is where you can keep an eye on it and use it between trips. It’s not just a recreational vehicle, it’s potentially:

With the Airstream at home, you can keep it charged and ready for the next adventure at all times. You don’t even have to turn off the refrigerator if you have solar panels (or a plug) and propane in the tanks. And it’s a lot less likely to suffer damage when you keep using it between trips, compared to being out of sight and neglected at a storage facility.

If you store the Airstream inside a closed barn with a gravel floor, be sure that the floor has a vapor barrier (plastic sheeting under the gravel). Otherwise a lot of moisture from the ground will accumulate over the winter and rapidly accelerate corrosion. Any indoor environment needs to be dry and/or have great ventilation.

#2: At home, in the driveway

This is also a great choice, with only the disadvantage being that the Airstream is exposed to the elements. It’s a huge benefit to have a roof over the Airstream. That extends the life of your Airstream significantly—by keeping rain, snow, and UV light from the sun from gradually breaking down the sealants and plastics on the roof and appliances, and keeping the interior cooler in summer.

Driveway storage is great but eventually it would be best to put up some sort of shade structure or shed roof to keep the worst of the weather off the Airstream.

#3: At home, out in the field somewhere

I’m not a fan of keeping an Airstream in a grassy field, but if that’s what it takes to keep it close, it’s still better than a remote storage lot. The problem with storing the Airstream on grass is that it’s easy to let the weeds grow up, and that encourages critters, spiders, and snakes to check it out.

The belly pan on an Airstream is not fully sealed. It’s “mostly sealed” to protect the underbody and insulation from damage, but there are gaps big enough for a mouse to get in. Mice can get in the most incredibly tight spots, and the solution is not to seal up the belly pan so tight that you could camp on the Pacific Ocean—it needs to “breathe” so that moisture can get out.

A better preventative measure is to mow down those weeds, or better yet, put in a gravel pad. Maintain a “sterile” area around the Airstream for at least a couple of feet. There’s always going to be a risk of an unwanted visitor, but at least you won’t be rolling out a red carpet for all of Mother Earth’s creatures.

In any case, be sure to secure your Airstream trailer with a good coupler lock. It’s amazing how quickly thieves can remove cheap coupler locks and zip off with your Airstream.

#4: In a secure, covered, storage facility

Off-site storage is a reality for most of us. It’s rarely truly “secure” and often inconvenient, but I’d personally look for indications of good security anyway. I like storage lots with high walls so that the RVs aren’t on tempting display, video cameras that actually work, and a decent neighborhood around them.

I’d choose a more expensive storage lot in a good area far away, over a cheaper/scarier one that’s close to my house. I like my Airstream too much. But to each their own.

If you’re paying for a storage lot, strongly consider upgrading to covered storage. Like I said before, putting a roof over your Airstream pays off in the long run. A tiny drip from slow-melting snow can turn into a major, major repair of floor rot in a single winter.

#5: In an open lot, away from home

Now we’re getting down to the least palatable choices. Storing in an open lot away from your home is approaching an act of desperation. Maybe you have no other place to keep your Airstream, but without at least a good fence and some active security (night watch) you’re really rolling the dice.

Even RV dealerships sometimes have thieves come through at night. They like to break in quickly, steal the TV and other electronics, and flee. Sure, you’ll still have an Airstream in the end, but there’s going to be hassle involved in filing the insurance claim and getting the repairs done, and possibly some personal trauma and permanent scars to the Airstream.

#6: Near a body of salt water, or on damp ground

If you live near the ocean or perhaps Great Salt Lake, make sure your Airstream is stored far away. The “salt breeze” is seriously detrimental to your Airstream. It will cause fast-moving filiform corrosion (those white “spider webs” that afflict the edges of the aluminum skin, taillights, wheels, and other coated aluminum parts), and nothing will stop it except getting away from the salt and humidity.

Damp ground can be almost as bad. Florida is famous for this. I’ve seen lots of Florida trailers with completely rusted out frames underneath, just from a few years of sitting on neatly mown grass. There’s a lot of moisture rising from the soil all the time, even if you can’t feel it or see it.

#7: Under a tarp

Well, don’t do that. The only Airstream I’d cover with a tarp is a project trailer that has open holes in the roof—and not for long.

The problems with tarps are multiple:

they trap moisture

they flap in the breeze and create rub marks

they leak

They’re kind of the worst of all worlds, trapping moisture beneath while allowing leaks, and damaging the Airstream at the same time. Plus they’re ugly. Tarps are for temporary fixes and emergencies, but they’re not for long-term storage.

If you’ve got a tip regarding storage, share with us using the Comments box below.

]]>http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2020/06/01/best-and-worst-places-to-store-your-airstream/feed/0What Lies Beneathhttp://howto.airstreamlife.com/2020/05/15/what-lies-beneath/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-lies-beneath
http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2020/05/15/what-lies-beneath/#respondFri, 15 May 2020 19:04:54 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4753I hate to tell you this, but there may actually be a “boogieman” under your bed. (Your 8-year-old self wasn’t entirely wrong.)

The problem is your mattress. Airstreams come with foam mattresses, and in humid conditions moisture can collect under the mattress and encourage the growth of mold.

Yes, mold. Take a look at the photo. This was the mattress of a couple of Airstreamers who came through our shop in Tucson. They discovered this disturbing life form growing on the bottom of their mattress while trying to search for the source of a funky smell. And this is only one of several examples we’ve seen this year.

This can happen to any Airstreamer, even if you don’t live in a humid area. When you sleep, your body gives off moisture through a process called “insensible perspiration” and this moisture gets caught in foam mattresses. It settles toward the bottom and helps form the ideal conditions for mold: damp, warm, and dark.

An 8″ block of foam (which is what probably came with your Airstream) has millions of tiny air pockets and cells, each of which is a lovely home for mold spores, and doesn’t breathe. That’s why many people find foam mattresses to be too warm on hot nights.

I’ve heard all sorts of solutions to these problems. Some people use electric mattress warmers underneath to drive off the moisture. That sounds good, except when you’re boondocking and have limited electricity, or on hot nights.

Another possible solution is to buy a special extra layer to encourage air flow underneath the mattress. I don’t know if these work but I’ve seen them available for about a hundred bucks. If you don’t want to replace your existing mattress, it might be worth a try.

To my mind, the best solution to all of these problems is to go old-school. Innerspring—not foam—mattresses are great for RV’ing: they’re lighter than the equivalent foam, they breathe, they can be made “flippable” so you can even out the wear, and they stay much drier.

What’s more, you can customize an innerspring mattress in ways that are impossible with foam. For example, by adding extra springs on one side, the mattress can accommodate two adults with different weights, or when one person likes the bed a bit firmer than the other. So you can get a more comfortable night’s sleep than you could on a single-layer slab of foam.

We teamed up with a local Tucson mattress company to develop our own line of custom-made mattresses. Not only is each one made specifically to your specifications (thickness, springs, firmness of the top layer) but they are made to fit your Airstream exactly.

The best part is that they are a bargain. We’ll build an exact-fit replacement for you, exactly the way you want it, in 2-3 days, for a really affordable price. You can pick it up when you’re passing within 50 miles of Tucson (I-10), or we’ll ship it to your home in the 48 states for just $75 more.

Whatever you choose to do, just be sure not to let moisture build up under a foam mattress. Once it takes hold, there’s really no way to undo the damage.

]]>http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2020/05/15/what-lies-beneath/feed/0What’s wrong with campground power?http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2019/01/16/whats-wrong-with-campground-power/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=whats-wrong-with-campground-power
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 15:48:10 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4737If you take one message away from this posting, it should be this: Don’t trust campground power.

I’ve camped at literally hundreds of campground across North America, and I’ve frequently been amazed how often the electrical service is poor or even dangerous. The most frequent problem is low voltage, where the normal 120 volt or 240 volt service sags because everyone is using their air conditioner at the same time.

The electrical devices in your Airstream are designed for normal voltage plus or minus 10 percent. That means anywhere from 108 volts to 132 volts is tolerated by the refrigerator, air conditioner, microwave, and power converter. (The power converter changes the 120 volt AC power into 12 volt DC power to charge the battery and support all the other 12 volt accessories like furnace, water pump and lights, so it’s particularly important that it is happy.)

But in reality, a hot day in a campground can mean brief “brown outs” where the power dips below 105 volts—and that is bad news indeed. If your air conditioner tries to start up under those conditions it will probably burn out, and that’s a $1000+ replacement. (Plus you’ll have to suffer in the heat until you can get a repair!)

We have a Digital Voltage Meter in the Airstream Life Store, and I recommend that everyone carry one at a minimum so you can test the power before you plug in your Airstream. It checks the voltage and the wiring to make sure you aren’t plugging into bad power. It’s cheap insurance and will protect you from things like mis-wired outlets, bad grounds, and incorrect polarity.

But the limitation of a meter is that it can’t help you if there’s a power surge or dip when you’re not watching. The best solution is a smart Electrical Management System (EMS). Like the Voltage Meter, the EMS checks the wiring before allowing power to flow to your Airstream. Then it continuously monitors for dangerous conditions like high or low voltage.

An EMS like that will shut off the power instantly (in milliseconds) if something bad is happening, and then turn the power back on when conditions are safe again. It’s a brilliant solution.

Take a few tips next time you go camping: When you get to your campsite, inspect the power pedestal before you plug in. Look for cracked or broken outlets, wasp nests (I’ve been stung more than once when opening a pedestal cover), or looseness. If the outlet seems questionable, don’t plug in without first using a Digital Voltage Meter or EMS. You should see about 120 volts, and there should be no indications of mis-wiring.

If the voltage is below 115, be wary. That means the wiring you share with many other campers is already a little stressed, and it’s likely to go lower once you plug in. If you need to use an extension cord, that’s another concern because longer cord runs mean lower voltage. And don’t ever try to run the air conditioner while the Airstream is connected to a 15-amp household plug. It might work for a while but sooner or later the voltage will drop or one of the plugs may melt.

If the campground power voltage is a little low to start and you know the weather is going to get hot later you can probably expect that the voltage will continue to drop, perhaps to dangerous levels. This is the ideal situation to be using a good EMS, because it takes only a few seconds of low power to cause expensive problems in the Airstream. It’s much better to have the power cut off automatically by the EMS (and later restored automatically) than to blow up your AC appliances. The same is true of voltage spikes.

There are a couple of brands of EMS units on the market today. Most outlets sell a Surge Guard unit but I’m not a big fan of that one. Reliability seems to be an issue and the overall quality is (in my opinion) lower. For a decade now I’ve been using Progressive EMS units and they’ve been great, so that’s the only brand we carry in the Airstream Life Store.

Progressive also stands behind their product. I had one fail because I left it out in a Florida rainstorm with the plugs facing up, and they filled with water. Progressive honored the lifetime warranty anyway and replaced it for free. The current models come with a nice rain shield now, so even that problem is unlikely to occur.

Whatever solution you choose (Digital Volt Meter, Electrical Management System), be sure to pay attention to the power everywhere you plug in, including when you’re “driveway camping” at home or a friend’s house. A few seconds of attention can save you an expensive repair later!

]]>What’s boondocking and what do I need to do it?http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/10/05/whats-boondocking-and-what-do-i-need-to-do-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=whats-boondocking-and-what-do-i-need-to-do-it
http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/10/05/whats-boondocking-and-what-do-i-need-to-do-it/#commentsFri, 05 Oct 2018 20:06:15 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4732Every modern Airstream is pretty well set up for living off the grid, for a day or two. But if you want to get away from crowded campgrounds and park somewhere without hookups for more than a weekend—in other words, boondocking—you’ll want to start upgrading your Airstream and your camping practices a bit.

There are three major limitations to your boondocking experience: water, power and propane. (Other considerations are things like food and sewer capacity, but you’ll probably run out of water or power first.)

The best and least-expensive way to extend your boondocking time is to learn how to conserve. Learn the “navy shower” technique, do less dishwashing or learn to wash very efficiently or use paper plates, replace all lights with LEDs (if they aren’t already), set the furnace temperature lower and sleep with an extra blanket or dog, etc. Conservation takes a little effort and a little practice, but it pays off immediately.

When using the 12 volt batteries you won’t be able to run the air conditioner or microwave, so the remaining big energy consumers are the furnace, water pump, and laptops. Airstream batteries are typically sized with just enough capacity for an overnight or a weekend (if you aren’t running the furnace a lot) because most people don’t use the trailer away from shore power for longer than a night or two.

Once the batteries run out of juice, everything in the trailer goes off: refrigerator (even when running on propane), heat, light, water pressure … even the hitch jack won’t go up or down anymore. So power conservation is important.

To reduce the drain caused by laptops, try using a tablet or your phone instead. An iPad requires about 10-20% of the power of a laptop and can charge quickly from a cigarette lighter plug, instead of requiring an inefficient inverter. (You can pick up USB cigarette lighter adapters easily if you have an older trailer without USB outlets.) Shorter showers and limited dish washing will also cut power consumption by the water pump.

Carrying a portable solar panel can be very helpful if you like to camp where trees shade the Airstream. With a solar panel kit and an extension cable you can put the panels in a spot where the sun hits them. Solar isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s silent, free to operate, eco-friendly, and you don’t have to carry gas. With summertime sun, a pair of solar panels can extend your boondocking time by days.

If you find the two batteries supplied with the Airstream aren’t enough, consider going to larger batteries. This will require some custom work, but you’ll get a lot of value out of it.

In hot weather, try to spend the day out of the Airstream. This cuts down the length of time you’ll need the vent fans. Each vent fan consumes about 2 DC amps, which means three of them running for six hours = 36 amp-hours. That’s a lot of juice, which is put to better use after sunset when the temperatures start to drop.

In the winter, furnace use is the problem. The furnace eats a lot of power (7-10 amps when running) and it’s fairly wasteful of propane too. A catalytic heater is helpful, since it doesn’t use electricity at all, and is much more efficient at turning propane into heat.

Propane isn’t much of a limitation in the summertime, since a pair of 30-lb. tanks will run the refrigerator and water heater for weeks. But in late fall and winter you’ll want to travel with both propane cylinders as full as possible. You can easily find yourself spending an unexpected night along the road with only your propane supply to keep you warm. With freezing nights a tank of propane can be used up in just a few days.

If you are going to be off grid for a while, get a portable tank to carry fresh water. Serious boondockers will find a place in town or nearby to refill their jerry can or water bottles, and bring a little fresh water back to camp after every excursion. Mark the tank “FRESH WATER ONLY”.

After a few days of boondocking it’s nice to hit a full hookup campground for a night just to get everything back in ship-shape. The Airstream will inevitably be full of dirt and gravel tracked in from the campsite, and you might be a bit less fresh than you’d like to be (due to careful conservation of water). Plus there may be various electronic devices that you postponed charging, or the laundry basket might be full, and it will probably be time to get some groceries and dump the tanks if there wasn’t a place to do it before.

We find that having a “recovery” day in a full hookup campground is something we enjoy, with long showers and a chance to get everything ship-shape before heading out for more adventure (or home).

]]>http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/10/05/whats-boondocking-and-what-do-i-need-to-do-it/feed/2Cooking without gas (or charcoal!)http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/06/12/cooking-without-gas-or-charcoal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cooking-without-gas-or-charcoal
Tue, 12 Jun 2018 13:40:09 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4719I like trying new things as we travel in our Airstream. Last week, at Alumapalooza, I saw an earnest Welsh man named Davey Jones (really) demonstrating something I’ve never seen before: a solar cooker that actually makes sense.

I have seen solar ovens before. Back in 2005 at the Florida State Rally I spotted someone cooking with a giant solar oven (pictured at right) but I was unimpressed. Although the oven had room for a large pot, it was far too big to be practical for our style of travel. When deployed, it looked like an NASA probe bound for Jupiter. I dismissed it as an interesting but quirky niche item for extremists.

Thirteen years later, I’m not so quick to dismiss the power of the sun. After all my fixed base home and my Airstream are powered by solar panels, and I love them. At home the sun provides 110% of our annual power needs, and solar panels can keep us unplugged for weeks during the summer in our Airstream.

Davey was showing off the new GoSun line of solar cookers at Alumapalooza. (They’re called “cookers” because they can be stove, oven, broiler, steamer, or water-heater depending on how you use them.) Even in hazy Ohio sunlight he was baking up cinnamon rolls and frying bacon all day long. I’m not sure if I was more impressed at the cooking or the cleverness of his olfactory marketing.

The secret of the GoSun cookers is the vacuum tube at the center. It’s basically a Thermos bottle with one-way mirrored glass. Sunlight goes in, converts to infrared as it passes through the glass, and the heat is trapped by the vacuum bottle. This is a quantum leap from the big wood box of 13 years ago.

That means that with the GoSun cookers you don’t need a huge reflector area to make a lot of heat. The reflectors on the GoSun cookers is tiny compared to the giant Sun Oven pictured above, and yet the inside of the vacuum tube can get to 550 F. (Most of the time it runs 200-360 F.) The amazing thing is that you can grab the outside of the glass tube with your hands and it won’t even be hot. So you can’t burn yourself on it.

The smallest model, the GoSun “Go” (pictured below) is so portable it fits easily in a daypack, and weighs just 2 pounds. It’s perfect for meals for one person, or two people depending on what you cook. The next size up, the GoSun “Sport” (pictured above) is still very packable, and can make enough hot food for 3-4 people.

We got the “Go” model to try it out before adding it to the Airstream Life Store (as I do with every product we carry), and tried it out in a friend’s driveway a few days later. I decided to bake some apples for my first trial, and sweeten them with cinnamon, xylitol, and nutmeg.

Whatever you cook has to fit into the cylindrical cooking tray. In the case of my apples, that meant peeling them and cutting into chunks. Then I just put the apples into the tray, slid it into the cooker, and placed it in the sun.

The cleverness of the GoSun design started to become apparent when I did this. The hardshell case of the “Go” model is zippered, so deploying it is simply a matter of unzipping. A brace holds the two sides of the case open and the reflectors are built right in. There’s even a little dial attached to the tube to make it easy to locate the optimal angle to the sun, and an adjustable folding stand attached to the case props the whole thing up.

Once you slide the food tray in and point it at the sun, your work is done. After a few minutes in full sun the interior will be hot enough to start cooking. Steam begins to waft out of the end of the vacuum tube. You can take a peek at progress by sliding the food tray out for a moment.

My big mistake was not believing what I saw. I really couldn’t believe that the apples were cooking, so I left it in the sun for much longer than necessary, and when I finally removed them they were basically applesauce. Delicious applesauce, sure, but not quite what I had planned for. Fortunately, I had prepared three apples and could only fit 1.5 apples worth in the first batch, so did a second batch and cut my cooking time in half.

Those apples came out perfectly, softened but still firm. I mixed the chunks with the applesauce from the first batch and had a really great dessert for the next two days. (It would have been perfect on ice cream but I ate it all straight.)

Now, you may be thinking “I already have a stove and oven in my Airstream, so why do I need this?” I thought the same thing at first. Then I realized, a big part of the joy of travel and camping is cooking outdoors for family and friends. Lots of people carry charcoal or propane grills. Others carry Dutch Ovens. You don’t need them but it’s so much more fun to prepare a meal slowly, outdoors, and while you’re waiting for that delicious slow food you can enjoy talking with your friends.

I particularly like that the GoSun cookers come with little silicone baking trays so that you can make cupcakes and such (I used them for the apples, too), and can be configured to make hot drinks. This gives them a lot of versatility. They’re also easy to clean; you just slide out the stainless steel tray and wash it. GoSun includes a bottle brush to clean inside of the vacuum tube if it gets a little food stuck to it, but most of the time that’s not necessary. So cleanup and packing took me about two minutes.

The only limitation I spotted with the “Go” model is that the food capacity is pretty small, best for one person or a small side dish (or a topping like I made). I think we’ll upgrade to the “Sport” model for future cookouts, and that way we can make things for all three of us. If you get the Sport, be sure to get the “Pro Pack” so that you have all the accessories you need including a case.

If you have one of these, please put in a comment below to tell me your favorite thing you’ve made in it. I’m looking forward to further experiments with our portable solar cooker, and your ideas would be welcome!

]]>Keeping your data safe while you travelhttp://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/06/05/keeping-your-data-safe-while-you-travel/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=keeping-your-data-safe-while-you-travel
Tue, 05 Jun 2018 20:48:29 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4714We spend about five to six months a year traveling in our Airstream, which means the laptop computers come along and backing up data on the road is part of our routine. If we didn’t back up data periodically, we could lose a lot of important business information and priceless photos from our travels. But securing our data is not as simple as it might seem.

There are handy online services that will automatically back up your data, and that’s convenient. For an RV traveler, however, these services can suck up all the data on your cell phone plan if you’re using a cellular hotspot to connect to the Internet. So we rely on portable USB hard drives for our backups—the “old fashioned” manual method.

These portable hard drives are pretty cheap and easy. Easy to use (I like Carbon Copy Cloner, but Apple’s Time Machine and many other good software packages are out there), and easy to store in a plastic tub between backups. If you have a small amount of data to back up, you can even use a big USB flash drive.

But imagine that one day your Airstream is in an accident, and as a result both the laptop and the backup drive are destroyed. You’re still out of luck. For that reason, I keep a second backup drive at home, locked in a safe, and I make a point of backing up all three laptops to it before we depart on a long trip. Having the second backup physically distant from the Airstream means it’s very unlikely we’ll lose all our data after a catastrophe.

The other major risk is losing your laptop, tablet, or phone. These days those devices have considerable potential to ruin your life. Forget about “identity theft”—think about the damage someone could do just with access to your devices. People often don’t appreciate the tremendous amount of personal data that can be obtained just from access to their email. And once a hacker has access to email, it’s usually not long before they’ve engineered access to social media accounts, shopping accounts, credit cards, and more.

To protect against this risk, always protect all of your devices with a password. There’s nothing quite like that sinking feeling when you think about all the private information on your device—emails, passwords, social media accounts—after it’s gone. The simple 4-digit default passwords offered on phones and tablets are at least better than nothing, but the best passwords are long. That old advice about having an upper case letter, a lower case letter, a symbol, a number, and at least 8 characters is somewhat outdated and tends to result in passwords like “4GflzbY#” that humans can’t easily remember, so try a “pass phrase” instead, like “I love 3 turtles”. That will stop the casual attacker and you probably won’t forget it.

If you do have trouble remembering passwords, or you have too many of them (like all of us), try a password manager. This software, available from several sources, allows you to store all your passwords in a single place, protected by encryption and a master password. It’s much more secure than writing your passwords on a piece of paper and sticking it in a drawer or taping it to the computer screen like I’ve seen several people do. Personally, with all the web-based services I use, I couldn’t function without a password manager.

For computers, always encrypt the entire hard drive. This feature is built into all Apple devices but you have to activate it on a laptop (look for FileVault settings). Whole disk encryption is available for Windows computers too, and well worth the peace of mind if your laptop ever takes a walk. These days it doesn’t slow down your computer to encrypt the hard drive, so there’s really no reason not to use it. Make sure the backups are encrypted too!

“Find my phone” services are another great tool for travelers. If you drop your phone, this may be your only chance at getting it back. Again, Apple has built it in (“Find My iPhone”) but it has to be activated using your Apple ID. We’ve used this feature more than once to recover lost phones.

Finally, if you do business while you travel, get a Virtual Private Network (VPN). It’s a service that encrypts all of your web traffic and routes it through proxy servers. This has two impacts: (1) It anonymizes your location (which may not be something you care about); (2) It makes it impossible for other people to snoop on your Internet activity. Although much of Internet traffic is encrypted anyway (like websites with the prefix “https://”), there are still too many times where your information is transmitted “in the clear”. A hacker in a campground can “sniff” the shared wifi and pick up information that can then be used to hack into your accounts.

With a VPN, the hackers are locked out. A good VPN costs $35-80 per year. Don’t be tempted by free VPNs, since they sometimes make money selling customer information.

Got a tip for personal data security? Put in a comment below!

]]>Hot weather travel tipshttp://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/04/30/hot-weather-travel-tips/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hot-weather-travel-tips
Mon, 30 Apr 2018 09:00:05 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4708Maybe it’s because I’m in Arizona right now and the temperatures are already hitting the nineties every day, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about summer travel. For the most part it’s fun to plan where we will go and think about the great things we’ll see, but for us, traveling in the summer is a necessity in order to escape the unrelenting southern Arizona heat.

With an Airstream it’s usually easy to get out of the heat—after all, we have wheels—but there are times when it’s inescapable for a few days, like when we are crossing the Great Plains states on our way to Alumapalooza in late May. Many times we’ve been crossing Kansas or Oklahoma or Missouri and we’ve been nearly steamed to death in what the meteorologists call “oppressive humidity.”

So even if you plan to drive away from the heat, you need strategies ready in case the heat follows you. Here are a few of the things we’ve learned over the years:

First off, if you have delicate pets or humans traveling with you, don’t mess around: get a campground with 30-amp or 50-amp power and plug in. This may necessitate a change in plans and you might end up somewhere you don’t want to be, but the blessing of cool air blowing in from the A/C will make it all worthwhile.

I find that a lot people are surprised to discover the limitations of a single air conditioner on a 30-amp plug. If you’ve got a newer Airstream with dual air conditioners (and a 50-amp plug) you can deal with just about any level of heat. But a single A/C definitely has limits. The A/C will generally cool the incoming air by about 20 degrees, but that doesn’t mean your trailer will be 20 degrees cooler if it’s sitting in the sun. In our 30-footer, for example, a sunny 100-degree day means we’ll experience indoor temperatures in the low 80s, at least until the sun goes down.

So it’s useful to park in shaded campsites, preferably not in asphalt parking lots (green surroundings = cooler air), and be realistic in your expectations. If the trailer is over 100 degrees inside when you arrive, it’s going to take a while before the air conditioner can remove all the latent heat that is stored in every object in the interior.

To cope, try to spend the few couple of hours somewhere else (like a restaurant or visitor center) while the air conditioner does its job. Don’t even dream of using the stove or oven—the burners can output much more heat than the air conditioner can remove. If you have a microwave use it instead, or go out for dinner, or cook outside, or eat a cold dinner.

The keys to surviving a night in the heat are water and electricity:

Water, because you need to stay hydrated and a quick cool shower once or twice a day will go a long way toward keeping your body comfortable. In desert boondocking situations you can even soak towels and place them strategically around the trailer for evaporative cooling. We bring a few gallons of extra drinking water when we’re heading into a boondocking site in the summer.

Electricity, because you’ll use a lot more battery power than usual with the vent fans running constantly. A single Fantastic Vent (the kind installed as original equipment in Airstreams including motorhomes) might draw about an amp of power, which isn’t much for short durations. But with two of those fans running around the clock for a weekend, you’re looking at something in the region of 90 amp-hours, which is going to overwhelm the typical 2-battery setup in an Airstream trailer. You’ll need solar panels or a generator, and/or a much larger set of batteries.

The Zip Dee awning that came with your Airstream trailer (or the equivalent awning on a Nest, Basecamp, or Interstate) can make a big difference if it’s on the south or west side when you park. Definitely deploy the awning as much as you can to shade that side of the rig.

A Zip Dee Solar Shade is a huge help too, when the sun is beating down on that side of the trailer, especially when the entry door is facing west. The Solar Shade broadens the shady patch in the afternoon, when it really matters, and gives you a nice outdoor space that you otherwise wouldn’t enjoy on a hot day.

In an Interstate motorhome, you may find that the Mercedes dashboard air conditioning isn’t quite enough when traveling on the highway on a 100+ degree day, especially for any back-seat passengers. Sometimes you need to fire up the onboard generator so that you can run the roof air conditioner as you go. It might seem weird but it’s OK to do this.

When you’re parked, you will probably discover that you don’t need to turn on the water heater. Often the fresh water hose lying in the sun, combined with warm water in the tank, will be plenty warm for showers. But there’s a downside to this: not all water hoses are rated for “hot water” use. Cheap-o hoses made of PVC or other plastics may leach chemicals when laying in the sun all day filled with hot water. That’s why we switched to drinking water hoses that are rated for hot water use.

Keep an eye on your refrigerator as well. Often, RV refrigerators don’t have great ventilation and so heat can build up in the refrigerator compartment (the space behind the refrigerator). When the air temperature around the refrigerator’s cooling fins approaches 100 degrees—which is very common in the enclosed compartment, even when the outside temp is much lower— the result is warm food in the refrigerator.

To combat this, keep the fridge door closed, and if you need to get something be sure to get it quickly. It’s not like your home refrigerator that has a big compressor and can recover its coolness in a few minutes. Each time you open that door it can take hours to recover fully on a hot day.

Also get a wireless temperature monitor so you can check the interior temp without opening the door. You can get two of them and monitor the freezer as well, but I’ll tell you right now that if the fridge starts to climb above 50 degrees, whatever is on the door of the freezer will probably start to defrost. (Pack your ice cream and seafood in the back.) These wireless monitors are available from many sources and they’re not expensive.

If you camp in hot weather a lot, with or without air conditioning, consider having a set of electric fans installed in the chimney of the refrigerator compartment. These things are amazingly effective at moving the hot air out of the fridge compartment to help the refrigerator cool down. We switch our fans on every day that the outside temperature is above 85 degrees. Some Airstreams come with those fans, but most don’t, and I think they’re a must for serious summer travelers. We’re going to work on a kit for the Airstream Life Store later specifically to solve this problem.

Finally, as you travel on hot days you need to be extra aware of the condition of your tires. They are much more susceptible to problems and wear on hot days. When the air is 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the highway surface can easily be 120+, and the air inside the tires will often exceed 140 degrees at highway speeds. That’s brutal on tires and it shortens their life.

This is just one of several reasons I strongly recommend a good tire pressure/temperature monitoring system. Blowouts and other failures are far more likely on hot days, and you want to know right away if something goes wrong before it does additional damage. If you don’t have a tire pressure monitoring system you should make a habit of visually inspecting all the tires at every stop, and checking air pressure frequently.

]]>Is it safe to tie down your awning?http://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/04/23/is-it-safe-to-tie-down-your-awning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-it-safe-to-tie-down-your-awning
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 23:10:40 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4703This one is a bit controversial. We used to sell a very nice tie-down kit in the Airstream Life Store that was great for securing almost anything to the ground. (I still like the product, but we stopped selling them because not very many people bought them.)

Although a ground anchor is great for dog leashes, kites, solar shades, and even airplanes, a common use is to tie down the Zip Dee awning so it doesn’t flap as much on a breezy day.

I like to do this when we are camped near a beach or any other place where it tends to be breezy. But fair warning: the moment you propose to tie down your awning, someone will come up to you and proclaim that you should never tie down the awning. Even Zip Dee, the manufacturer of your Airstream’s awning, will tell you they don’t recommend it. So you might feel a bit foolish for having bought a tie-down that you are officially discouraged from using.

Well, I’ll go out on a limb and say that’s overly-precautionary. Tying down an awning won’t hurt it. Leaving it deployed in a heavy wind or storm will.

Zip Dee says your awning will be fine in a light breeze, but they don’t give an official wind speed limit. Instead, they say things like “if you’re comfortable in the breeze, the awning probably is too.” I’ve also heard various numbers tossed around but there seems to be no exact consensus. Somewhere above 20 MPH there’s a point at which a deployed awning arm might bend, but without a wind tunnel or a really good mechanical engineering study I doubt we’ll ever know exactly.

So if there’s a chance of heavy weather (like thunderstorms or high wind gusts), take down your awning as a precaution. And always take it down at night, because if you don’t the wind will magically pick up around 2 a.m. and the rattling of the awning will wake you up. Take it from me. I’ve taken the awning in many times in the pitch black, wearing pajamas.

Now let’s get real. On a day when there’s a lot of sun and a mild breeze, I’ll be a rebel and tie down the awning. (Yeah, I live on the edge.) I do it because the awning rattles and flaps in the wind and it’s distracting. As long as the wind stays moderate, tying down the awning won’t do any harm.

The theory against using a tie-down seems to stem from the idea that a Zip Dee awning has some flex built into it, which helps it resist damage in the wind. If so, I’m taking some of that flex away by pulling the awning down with my tie-down. I can live with that, in exchange for a bit of quiet. Obviously, if the wind picks up, I’ll disconnect the tie-down and roll up the awning. We’re not talking about complex calculus here.

But if you can’t stand the idea of helpful people coming up to you to explain that you’re not doing it correctly, then I recommend a Solar Shade. This snaps to the underside of the Zip Dee awning and adds some privacy and shade to your outdoor living space. Use “The Claw” to secure the Solar Shade instead. This has the same effect of quieting the awning in a breeze, with the security of knowing that the Solar Shade will disconnect at the snaps if the wind pressure becomes too high.

]]>Improving your cellular connectionhttp://howto.airstreamlife.com/2018/02/15/improving-your-cellular-connection/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=improving-your-cellular-connection
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 09:17:33 +0000http://howto.airstreamlife.com/?p=4693I think we were the only ones with cellular Internet at this rally in 2005

These days having Internet while we are traveling is almost as important as water and oxygen, at least for many of us. When I started full-time Airstream travel in 2005 having a cellular Internet “box” was a big deal and fairly rare. The one I was using cost about $2,500 and was about the size of two VHS tapes (remember those?) and when I went to the WBCCI International Rally in Springfield MO, everybody wanted to borrow it to check their email.

Fortunately it was a loaner, because not long after you could get a tiny hotspot that did the same thing for about $79, and suddenly we all started getting them. Now almost anyone can use cellular networks for their Internet, just by turning on a hotspot feature on their phone.

Of course, when Internet is free and easy you start to take it for granted, and then when it suddenly isn’t available it feels like a python has taken a grip to your neck. You know what I mean if you’ve ever pulled into a campground and found their wifi to be completely useless once everyone in the campground starts watching Netflix. Here’s your python—no more oxygen for you!

I skip the campground wifi because it’s almost always horrible, and use cellular exclusively for my work. Not only is it more reliable, it’s more secure. No unknown persons are able to share my hotspot, and that’s a good thing for security reasons. (This assumes, of course, that you have encryption enabled on your hotspot and use a hard-to-guess password.)

It’s rare when the cellular network runs slowly. Usually I only find an overcrowded network in Borrego Springs, CA, where every winter hundreds of RVs park in and around the town. Many of them are part of the current craze of RV “technomads”, people who rely on having good Internet every day, all day, and in the past few seasons they have completely overwhelmed the capacity of the Borrego Springs cell towers.

Far more often the problem is the reverse: instead of being overcrowded, we’re usually in a fringe reception area, competing with no one but struggling to pull a good signal into our Airstream.

Obviously the aluminum shell of an Airstream trailer is not great for reception (nor is the metal of an Interstate or Base Camp) so in the past I’ve been forced to set up my laptop on a picnic table outside. Let me tell you, the fantasy image of blissfully working outdoors instead of a some cubicle is absolute nonsense. Either the sun is too bright to see the screen or there’s a threat of rain, often there are bugs flying around and taking nips, the breeze may come up and blow your papers away, or it’s too hot or too cold. There’s a good reason officeworkers work in offices; it’s similar to why we camp in Airstreams instead of tents.

So in the real world we need to have a way to get the signal into the Airstream, and there’s really only one practical way: an external antenna, paired with a signal booster. WeBoost (formerly Wilson) has cornered the market on signal boosters, and their product is good, so you’ll probably end up with one of those. But the antenna that comes with most of their kits is, shall we say, “less than optimal”.

First of all it has a magnetic base, because it’s intended for cars and trucks. That’s not going to help on the aluminum roof of an Airstream. Second, to get the cable out you have to drill a hole in the Airstream roof, or poke it out through a window (a hole in the screen, of course) which looks awful and isn’t a good installation for the long haul. Third, there’s a reason they throw that particular antenna into the kit—it’s a cheap, so-so option.

The best move is to permanently mount a good antenna on the roof. Yes, you’ll have to get over the fact that a hole must be drilled in the Airstream. If you use the right antenna there won’t be any problem making the installation completely leak-proof.

My feeling is that if you are going to drill a hole, do it once and install the best antenna you can find. After evaluating many (including installing several types on the roof of my own Airstream over the past 12 years) I’ve settled on the Laird Phantom antenna.

It’s just as effective as the big antennas (which run 19 to 24 inches tall), but it’s just under three and a half inches tall. It looks like an inverted shot glass, mounted directly to the roof. Because it’s white and matches the roof color, most people will never see it, which is nice because I don’t like having huge antennas on my roof that virtually announce to the world that I’ve got laptops inside. And, it’s so small it won’t catch on branches during those “tree trimming” exercises we seem to do occasionally.

Another aspect I really like is that the Phantom antenna seals directly to the roof with a tight rubber gasket that prevents leaks. Nothing else is needed, but for a belt & suspenders approach I added a little sealant too. So it’s the last thing on my roof that I worry about leaking.

Really, everyone who wants reliable Internet in their Airstream should install one of these, but most people don’t, and I think that’s because they’re horrified by the idea of drilling a hole in their Airstream roof. I get that. It took me a while to get over it, too. Fairly often we sell one of these kits and it comes back a couple of weeks later with a sheepish email saying, “My [significant other] won’t let me drill a hole in the Airstream.”

That’s why we include a set of step-by-step instructions with the kit. The instructions show how anyone with moderate DIY skills can handle this job. Still, if you’re not comfortable with it you can always have the local Airstream dealer install it for you—or bring it to the factory sometime. It’s really not that hard; basically you just drill two holes and run the cable.

The end result is great. Not only is the antenna nearly unnoticeable, but the cellular performance is greatly improved. You’ll get faster data speeds and be able to get online easily in places where the system would struggle before. You’ll quickly forget the trauma of drilling a hole, and you’ll enjoy the boost in performance for years.